Hajimemashite

The last time we Skyped, I mentioned that I’d be taking today off to take care of business in Tokyo. As it stood, I only had three items of interest:

1) Hit up some tenugui shops for some birthday gifts, and
2) Eat me some Pepper Lunch, and
3) Get home before the typhoon rains start.

Oh yeah, and go all the way down to the main branch of the Immigration Bureau Office to upgrade to a Multiple-Entry Visa. Everything I read about the Immigration Bureau Office suggested that I try to get there early and beat the crowd, though I assumed that most of the crowd-issues would be weekend related, so I wasn’t too concerned.

I boarded the Joban-Rapid a little before 9:30 and was in Tokyo proper before 10:30, but it took a good hour to get all the way down to Shinagawa. Well, technically, the Immigration website suggests taking the JR loop around to Shinagawa then boarding a bus whose sole purpose is to be crowded and occasionally shuttle people from the Shinagawa JR Station to the Immigration Office, which is on some disgusting little industrial island. Seriously, what business occurs on that island, specifically, that they couldn’t build the office anywhere more sensible?

Anyway, in an attempt to save money and time, I took the JR to Hamamatsucho then catch the monorail to Haneda for one stop to Tennozu Isle. From there it’s an inconveniently circuitous journey across one of two bridges equidistant from either the monorail station on one side and the large, diabolically shaped Immigration Bureau Office

¹ Literally, it is a giant, black stone walled building with a floor plan designed in the shape of an X.

¹. It was maybe a 20 minute walk from Tennozu, though to just think that I probably saved myself ¥600 by walking almost made it worth it, especially since converting from a Single-Entry visa to a Multiple-Entry visa costs ¥6,000 itself

² Bah, “¥6,000”? I can’t get my head around numbers like that. And I know that to convert it into “dollars” at a rate of ¥100:$1 is outdated, but the imperialist in me wants to move the decimal place over two spots. Not even to create an absolute economic comparison—I mean, it’s not like I have the option of importing soap and vegetables at a competitive dollar price—but to help establish for me a relative-economy price structure. “How much did the Multiple-Entry visa cost you, Kevin?” “Why it cost me 60.00-Japanese dollars.” Or maybe just “yen-dollars,” to be written like ¥$... I’ll work on that. Just so I can start to figure out what is relatively expensive or cheap without having to deal with thousands and millions-of-somethings. That confounds my small mind.

². So, the general rule, if you don’t take the bus, is to cross either bridge to the east (so, either the north or south bridge, the walk is pretty much the same), find the refuse-burning tower, and use that as a general guide. Personally, though the JR Station Attendant recommended going north first, I think the short trip south is a bit quicker.

Anyway, by the time I got my visa changed, it was already almost lunch, so I changed up my plans on the fly: rather than starting my day with a tour of the Imperial Palace grounds and ending up at the tenugui stores, I decided to flip the script and start at Chidori, which meant that I could probably get to the Pepper Lunch in the Nihonbashikayabacho area at around lunch time.

Finding Chidori was really easy: I was in and out of there (and $100 lighter) in no time. Well, finding it took no-time: I think I spent thirty minutes in the store itself. Anyway, walking to Nihonbashiyabacho was much quicker than, say, walking from Asakusa to Ueno to Akihabara, though just as rewarding. Which is to say it wasn’t.

Here’s a shot of my lunch set:


You’ll notice a few things: the first of which is that it’s not a Pepepr Lunch. It’s actually gyudon. You know what that means, don’t you? Yoshinoya. Now, don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t disappointing because the food was bad. No, quite the contrary! The food was amazing. We will have to go when you come out. It was just… not Pepper Lunch.

Anyway, after lunch

³ Which was in actuality a late 2:00pm lunch since I spent an hour looking for Pepper Lunch only to be told by the nice Lawson’s Store attendant when I asked where it was: “no Pepa Runch!” with the customary Japanese “X” arm-sign.

³ I mulled around the Imperial Garden Grounds because, as it turned out, the palace grounds themselves were closed to visitors. This was fine. That would probably be a tourist trap worth going with someone more interested in those sorts of things than I am. Plus, it gave me a chance to furiously text with Matthew about finding alternative Pepper Lunch sites around Tokyo if I wanted to give it a third shot.

As I am more willing to get lost in Tokyo than around Kashiwa (knowing that the solid metro-system would pick me up wherever I am in Tokyo, whereas if I get lost in Kashiwa, I may end up dead from exposure, or lost like a misfiled library book), I finally did get to one in Shinjuku before catching the Yamanote loop home just as the rain was starting to fall.


I was thinking on my way home that I was worried that my diatribes lack some metanarrative that would really pull this entry together and make it interesting, but I just can’t.

What I did figure out that was interesting was that you know how soda isn’t that huge here (they prefer their juices and teas)? Well, for starters, it’s hard to find regular Pepsi in any of the vending machines. Cokes you can find pretty much everywhere: Coke and Coke Zero (or Xero, Wayne). Not too uncommon, however, is the Pepsi Max and something called “Pepsi Dry” (I’ve even had one called Caribbean Gold). But this will get your goat: normal cans of Coke (or Pepsi, if you can find it) cost around ¥120 for 200mL (or ¥150 for a 350mL bottle in some places)

⁴ That’s ¥$1.20 and ¥$1.50, respectively.

⁴. However, if you up-size, a 500mL can costs… get this: ¥$1.00. You save 50 yen-cents!

Well, that’s it for today. More Tokyo photos (as always) can be found here:

Dozo

What an amazing day Saturday turned out to be, Nick!

It couldn’t have been more than mid-/low- 80s at it's hottest, and then at around 2 pm the humidity dropped, so I decided to take Geoff out for a ride around town

¹ I decided to name the bike after it’s previous owner, though, technically, I think the black one was Mickie’s and the orange one was Geoff’s. Then again saying “I rode Geoff/Mickie” sounds terribly uncomely. I’ll have to think about it some more.

¹. I ended up biking around in concentric figure-eights, starting with a mini-loop to and from the super market across the Ohori-gawa River for some milk and cereal then winding my way up north-east to the farms bordering super-rich area of town, then back across the northern face south of Kitakashiwa station, around to the other side of the river again, to the “other” rich side of town. This went on for maybe an hour or so before I ended up back at the 7-11 for more munchies (in an ill-fated search for popcorn), before coming back home.

It’s a beautiful town. I was a little worried because the two blocks between my apartment and Kitakashiwa station is home to a Pachinko parlor, a couple convenience stores, apartments and a parking lot. But Kitakashiwa is a splendid blend of “small-town” on the fringes of a burgeoning city (Kashiwa proper), framed on all sides by rural farms and wide blue sky. The closest thing to it that I can think of would be Inverness: a sleepy, emerald suburban-shawl wrapped around a vibrant, churning river.

Anyway, I’ll get around to posting those Kashiwa pics after the end of the Kyoto-update. Speaking of which…





Oh, I almost forgot: after the fried-chicken debacle at lunch yesterday, I thought I’d go with something simple like reheating chicken karaage in the gas-broiler. Of course, stupid me, I set the karaage-stick on fire. Still tasted fine. No harm no foul, right? Right.

Anyway, I’m super-happy that I got my internet set up today. I watched a couple of hours of No Reservations off my Slingbox and punched out a ton of episodes I’ve had backlogged on my Hulu account

² Mostly episodes of Louie, Archer, and Colbert.

². I’m just a little tired of Japanese TV right now.

Okay, so I know it’s pretty well documented how lame scheduled programming is in Japan (though their game shows are pretty good… unfortunately, their news programs are kinda bad, and 90% of the remaining shows are of the Variety-Programming style…), but this will really get your goat. Live sporting events aren’t regularly televised on non-cable TV

³ Occasionally, a big match up or event will be televised, but that’s not so different from America, right?

³. Well, if the television programmers allot 3 hours for a baseball game (say, the Hanshin Tigers against the Yomiuri Giants), they will only televise 3 hours, even if the game runs longer. I’m sure they’ll figure that out after a while. I mean, they did eventually get the toilet right…

Onegaishimasu!

Hey Nick, how’s it going?

It’s 10:00 AM on my first official weekend as the TSCA ALT in Kashiwa and I’m vacuuming. I’m not sure if it’s because I want the floor to be clean because I’m worried what the J.Comm internet installer will think of my collection of dust bunnies, or if it’s because keeping busy—doing menial things around the house—keeps me from dwelling on how alone being in a country where I can’t even understand the TV makes me feel.

It’s all about simulating a sense of “control.” For now, “gambare” is my friend.

I think I will fry up some salted chicken cubes for lunch, which I will likely also eat for dinner. Even then, I continually run into the problem of not knowing how to use any of the appliances here. Not only are the buttons not in English, but they’re riddled with kanji! It took me two hours to figure out how to use the rice cooker the other night! Anyway…

So those are my plans for today: cook and clean. The same plans I had since Thursday when my parents flew back home

¹ Non-sequitor: there’s this absurdly cute “Chicken Ramen” (dried flavored ramen noodles) commercial on the TV right now. For some reason, all of the Japanese markets in Torrance stopped selling them (my guess is that the rules about chickens and eggs in Japan are much more lax than in America). When the teachers took me and my mom to the market for our first “grocery trip,” my mom saw that they were selling the Chicken Ramen packets in bulk and got so excited she bought two sets: “one for me and one for Lauren.” None for me.

¹.

Well, after the J.Com guy comes, I may take the bike out for a spin and explore Kitakashiwa in concentric circles. Or just get lost. But there’s a typhoon supposedly coming in over the next week and it’s been sporadically raining in the evenings, so I may just stay in.

Tomorrow, though, I am going to get out to Tokyo. I think I’m going to start in Asakusa and every few weeks make my way around the loop. Though it’s not strictly pleasure: I do need to pick up cash from the bank

² Ironically, I have been looking for CitiBank ATMs under the assumption that it’d save me money to use the Citi ATMs since I’m a Citi-NA customer, but it turns out they charge me a $15 fee every time. What a bust!

². Originally, the plan was that the program provides a few thousand dollars for moving expenses and seed money, but because my reporting-date was so late, they need to wait to get the cash in hand to pass on to me. That means that I am starting to run low on funds, especially since virtually everything here is paid in cash (or debit, rather than credit).

Once I get some cash in my pocket I’ll feel much better, until I get my banking information

³ Well, better than using my American CC at places like UniqLo—where I’m mere cms from a XXL—and BicCarmera… which is another story in and of itself

³. I’ll probably end up using that moving money as “seed” money, then. After that I can set up auto-bill pay for my utilities (and rent, hopefully), and then even start signing up for things like the iPhone 5 waiting list and the Kashiwa Megalos!

I’ll let you know how that goes.

Earlier in the day a couple of trucks were driving around blaring an announcement from the loud-speaker. Apparently they’re asking for large trash disposal like appliances, televisions, and motorbikes. When we were in Kyoto looking for Daigoji we saw a similar truck driving around one of the suburbs. I assumed that it was a political advertisement truck, but it too was probably a trash truck. Though I’m not sure there’s much of a difference.

Anyway, I’m trying to figure out what to do with these four summer vacation days I have. I really want to use them but, as I mentioned, I’m a little short on cash-up-front at the moment. Even Yoshida-san is encouraging me to take them! I will definitely take one of them to go to the Immigration Bureau to pick up my Gaijin-Card (Foreigner Registration Card) and change my Single-Entry to a Multiple-Entry, just so that I don’t have to worry about it for the holidays (or if I end up going to Taipei on a whim).

I’ve played around with the idea of going back to Kansai (super takai) or taking day-trips to Tokyo, but I have no clue what to do, and though the idea of “not working” (yes, even before I start working) is nice, the prospect of spending 24 hours in my apartment alone is less interesting since I can’t watch any of the TV. Well, that may change now that the J.Comm guy is here

⁴ There are actually two of them and, much like the TEPCo Gas Guy, they are super polite and junk. They’re even overly-concerned about the laminate hardwood floor, only doing work on this tiny, soft-foil mat.

⁴.

Maybe I’ll start considering that trip to Hokkaido to visit Kari more seriously…

Anyway, I wasted too much of your time already.

Oh, and since you asked, here are some of the shots from Kyoto:



The rest of “Part 1: Narita to Kyoto” can be found HERE, while Parts 2 and 3 (including Hiroshima and Osaka as well as Fushimi Inari and Daigoji) will be posted in the next few days. Gotta leave them wanting more if we want the traffic, right?

Pictures from Kashiwa will be forthcoming as well.

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Post script: chicken frying was a disaster. I need to do some more research before I try that again… Ended up baking the chicken in an impromptu shoyu/dried herb mix. Came out a little tough, but tasted fine otherwise.